The situation in the morning: what next for Putin?

Olaf Scholz's Putin problem

This morning the heads of state and government of the EU are meeting in Brussels for a one-day council meeting. It is also the

. One of the most pressing issues is

, which has moved its tanks dangerously close to the border with Ukraine. Can the leaders of Europe today find a clear common answer to this provocation? And how will Scholz react to this question? Especially after yesterday's court ruling in the so-called Tiergarten Trial, in which the judge ruled: "That was state terrorism." The man who murdered in Berlin was part of the Russian security apparatus and was from a "government agency within the Russian government." Federation received the order «to murder.

Scholz's problem

: there are very different approaches in his traffic light government when it comes to dealing with Vladimir Putin's Russia. There are his traditionally Russia-friendly comrades, who in their bright moments refer to the Ostpolitik of their former Chancellor Willy Brandts - and in the darker moments only to the gas policy of their former Chancellor Gerhard Schröder.

And there are the Greens, whose leadership, at least so far, has shown very different priorities.

During his visit to Ukraine in early summer, Robert Habeck pleaded for arms to be delivered to the country for protection from Russia.

The new Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock advocates a more value-based foreign policy - which would result in harsher penalties for human rights violations by the Kremlin regime.

Both also want to permanently stop the North Stream 2 gas pipeline.

In Brussels today, Scholz will have to show whose side he is on in doubt.

My tip: not on the side of the Greens.

• Judgment on the murder in the Kleiner Tiergarten: Russian stress test for the traffic light

German money for French nuclear power?

The Brussels summit will also deal with a second sensitive issue:

.

Officially, only energy prices, which have recently risen sharply, are on the agenda.

But behind this there are fundamental questions.

Not just how dependent you want to be on Russian gas in the future.

But also how things should go with nuclear power in Europe.

Specifically, it must be clarified whether nuclear energy should be included as a climate-friendly transition energy in the so-called EU taxonomy, the set of rules that defines whether companies operate in an ecologically sustainable manner and that this should come into force on January 1st.

It is an important component of the “European Green Deal”, with which Europe is to become climate neutral by 2050.

A bitter

sparked over

whether nuclear power is defined as ecologically sustainable and thus promoted

.

If France prevails, as experts assume, this would mean that European nuclear energy will in future also be funded with money from Germany.

The Greens wanted to prevent that with all their might.

Here, too, the clear position of the new Federal Chancellor would not be entirely uninteresting.

But it doesn't exist yet.

• How green is nuclear energy?

  Macron wants the nuclear power comeback - and the traffic lights have to watch

Spahn or Lauterbach?

The appearance of the new Federal Health

this afternoon should be interesting.

The day before yesterday he complained that there would be a serious shortage of vaccine at the beginning of next year.

Far too little had been bought.

He reaffirmed the same message yesterday evening with Markus Lanz in the ZDF annual review.

The further message: Jens Spahn was far too hesitant about shopping.

Now Lauterbach and the traffic light government have to compensate for the failures.

Spahn's friends from the Union fought back yesterday. "Karl Lauterbach calls fire in order to then play the fire brigade - although he knows that there is no fire," said the health policy spokesman for the Union, Tino Sorge. No other country in the world is currently vaccinating more people than Germany. "However, this is no credit to Karl Lauterbach, the basis for it was laid beforehand." Lauterbach apparently wants to present the lists of his inventory to the press today, from which the shortage of vaccines should be evident.

The

current press spokesman for the Federal Ministry of Health plays a

piquant role in this indirect

.

Hanno Kautz worked for years to put his boss Jens Spahn in a good light.

Now he should do the same for Lauterbach.

The everyday life of press spokespersons is also challenging at times.

• According to Lauterbach's inventory: Are vaccines really missing in Germany?

Loser of the day ...

... is

.

Not only because the UK yesterday recorded the highest number of new corona infections since the beginning of the pandemic: more than 78,000.

This is mainly due to the highly contagious Omikron variant, which sooner or later will probably also be the dominant one in Germany.

Johnson's problems are numerous, above all the economic consequences of Brexit could lead to its replacement in the near future. At least that's what the British political scientist Anthony Glees, whom my colleague Muriel Kalisch interviewed, thinks. "Johnson's not a good year ahead of him," Glees believes. The latest projections are that the UK economy will shrink by 11 percent. “I was born in 1948, I remember the post-war years. The shops were empty. And now again. At the same time, our exports collapse. It will all mean: less money, higher prices, ”says Glees. If Boris Johnson doesn't make it, someone else has to come. Johnson's Conservative Party in particular is merciless on such issues. “It's like people are saying: We tried Lenin, but he didn't make it.Then better with Josef Stalin. "

The latest news from the night

• EU Parliament sets position for stricter regulation of large tech companies:

  The EU wants to limit the power of Internet

  giants

  such as Google, Facebook and Amazon.

  A first step has now been taken with a position by Parliament

• Caroline Kennedy is set to become the US ambassador to Australia:

  from 2013 to 2017 she was already the US ambassador to Japan.

  Now the daughter of the former president is supposed to head the American embassy in Australia

• bell hooks is dead:

  companions mourn the loss of "one of the most important feminist scientists in the country": the American author bell hooks died at the age of 69

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I wish you a good start to the day.

Your Markus Feldenkirchen